The rawest item on the shelf has to be Of Walking in Ice. When Herzog discovered that Lotte Eisner was dying in Paris, he decided to walk to her from Munich, “in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot”. His shoes fell apart quite soon. This act of commitment has additional resonance if, like me, you are reading David Constantine. But Constantine’s characters aren’t so confrontational, even as they confront the world’s implacability. They are tentative, hurt, rueful, & a kind of pliability or resilience gets them through & allows them to make the discoveries.

Chatwin mentions Herzog’s trek from Munich in one of his essays. Apparently Herzog was the only other person he’d met who believed that walking had the ability to physically heal. ‘Walking is holy; tourism is sin’ or something like that.

Also: mentioning Tree of Smoke in the same sentence as Dispatches impells me to read the big, fat book and makes me feel like a fool for avoiding Johnson up till now.

I have recently been told the same thing about walking–that it is something that masters do–even when they are in their final stages of life.
One in particular, because he was so ill, had to continue his walking on a treadmill.
you got me interested in my shelves:
Hand
Hardy
Harrison
Homer
Hopkinson
Hulme
Ishiguro

Herzog and Chatwin are spot on. But it is somehow a deeply strange thing that walking on pavements for prolonged periods is actually very damaging. As a big London walker, it is the only walking I do, which, on return home, makes me feel exhausted, stiff and sick. A combination of the fumes and the hard unrelenting surface perhaps. But there is something else too, something hard to identify, something that refuses to reveal itself. London walking…

London walking doesn’t ease you, it’s nervy & just makes you do more. The appetite feeds itself. The classic London walkers, like Machen, were driven. I did a lot when I was young. You walk endlessly in London for a reason: unconsciously you are looking for the way out. Or not even unconsciously. Independent of you, your body is looking for the way out.

Hope you got a good price for your BS Johnsons, assuming they were original copies. I ‘discovered’ him in the early 90s, and he’s one of those writers I keep coming back to. But collecting his books is an expensive hobby!

Hi Mike – sorry, this isn’t a comment, just wanted to say I was v. interested to read your comments about the David Constantine book (and Hassan’s). Are you reviewing The Shieling for the TLS? And if so, I don’t suppose you know when it’s due out? Thanks ever so much again for your engagement with what we’re doing. Best, Ra